My Life List

In arbitrary order.

• See the Aurora Borealis and/or Aurora Australis in full glory.
• Do hanami in Japan with amazing food and great friends.
• Have a thriving herb and vegie garden.
• Keep a pet cat or two.
• Road trip across the US (or simply visit every state, which I presume involves a road trip). I’ve been to: California (LA, San Fran, Lake Tahoe, Yosemite, Santa Cruz, Monterey and good old Lompoc); Nevada (Vegas); Florida (Orlando); Indiana (Indianapolis); Illinois (Chicago <3); Georgia (Columbus).
• Own a house.
• Own a holiday house.
• Have my own trapeze hanging from rafters.
• Holiday on a houseboat.
• Catch and eat my own fish. (Note there’s nothing about cleaning or cooking in there.)
• Publish a novel. (A successful novel.)
• Learn to sing properly and read sheet music fluently.
• Learn to sew properly and make an Aes Sedai shawl.
• Help troubled children.
• Visit some sort of typical tourist paradise. Bora Bora, Mauritius, Tahiti… Close… have now been to Tonga, which was almost a paradise on Royal Sunset Island, but we had pre-cyclone weather, so it couldn’t really count.
• Solve a crime.
• Ice skate on a lake or frozen natural body of water.
• Have a traditional portrait painted.
• Visit wineries in Western Australia.
• Snorkel in the Great Barrier Reef before it dies.
• Have passable (though compulsorily properly accented) French.
• Live in Hong Kong for a while and get my Cantonese up to speed.
• Learn Mandarin and Japanese properly.
• Learn Spanish and German and French.
• Be in a position to go horse-riding regularly.
• Live in a posh hotel for at least 2 months.
• Visit Antarctica.
• Get a really good pedicure.
• Learn to shuck oysters.
• Learn to make my own awesome roti and naan.
• Bake a cheesecake in a water bath. Jan 3rd, 2010- Texture was quite soft and smooth. Must reassess as to whether or not to do it again.
• See a professional ballet performance. July 5th, 2010- Peggy! By The Australian Ballet. Lovely! Dec 25th, 2010- Die Fledermaus, in Vienna! January 5th, 2011- Swan Lake, in Prague!
• See a professional opera performance. March 11, 2010- The Bear (Walton)/Angelique (Ibert) performed by Victorian Opera. Wonderful. Will definitely be going to the opera again.
• Learn to make awesome pho.
• Become proficient at sailing.
• Experience a safe earthquake. 4:28pm, March 18, 2009! Three strong beats through our desks, our monitors and the floor of our office. Surreal.
• See Machu Picchu
• Visit Greece
• Become super skilled with hula hoops
• Learn the basics on the German Wheel
• Visit the ice hotel in Sweden
• See the Christmas Markets in a European city-Nuremberg Christmas Markets- fab. Followed by Schonnbrun Christmas Markets in Vienna, then Christmas Markets in Berlin.
• See the Taj Mahal
• Go on a live, flowing, volcano tour
• Cook a terrine
• Make a big batch of something for my friends. Something = preserved lemons, jam, dukkah, kasoundi, chutney, kaya…
• Dine on the tramcar restaurant -17 September, 2010. A delight!
• See a platypus in the wild
• Volunteer with a soup van / kitchen
• Take Latin dance classes
• Learn to swing dance
• Soak in hot springs 13 November, 2010. Peninsula hot springs- oh my god awesome. It’s lucky I don’t live nearby because I know what I’d be blowing my money on.
• Develop a lovely cursive script with fancy letters.
• Visit the Northern Territory
• Bake delicious individual pies from scratch- preferably steak and mushroom.
• Grow my own mushrooms
• Sight the Loch Ness Monster
• Take a photo a day for a year
• Have a stage name or pen name or derby name
• See Les Miserables, preferably in London, but anywhere will do.
• Do a zipline canopy tour through a rainforest
• Sit in first, or at least business, class on an international flight.
• Attend an AFL Premiership Grand Final
• Attend a winning North Melbourne AFL Premiership Grand Final.
• Eat at a Michelin starred restaurant.
• Maintain a public blog / website.
• Own my own digtal SLR and learn to take amazing photos.
• Make broccoli soup 16 October 2010- It was freakin awesome.
• Learn to play a doumbek.
• Go on a cruise
• Soak in thermal baths in Budapest-Szechenyi baths and Gellert Baths
• Perfect multiple dancer’s spins- bellydance and salsa
• Have my feet nommed on by massage fishies -In probably one of the most unlikely places in the world to have this done: Prague! So smooooth.
• Attend the Nile Group Festival and the Sphinx Festivals in Cairo

Things that would have been on this list if I hadn’t done them already.

• Learn to belly dance.
• Live on my own.
• Learn to make an awesome lasagne.
• Go wine tasting in the Barossa and Clare Valleys.
• Visit the Tower of London
• See Paris
• See a total solar eclipse (Ceduna, South Australia, Dec 4, 2002.)